Chasing Piazza on June 19th

For twenty years it looked like Mike Piazza’s LAD rookie record of 35 home runs would stand the test of time. Since 2015, however, it has had Dodger rookies taking good cuts at it.

Puig never had a chance in 2013 given he didn’t get started until June but still hit 19 home runs in only 432 plate appearances. He reached his 19th home run in about his 416 plate appearance.

Last year I put out some LAD Rookie HR leaderboards when Corey Seager was giving Piazza a run for his money. I wasn’t writing in 2014 but if I had been, Joc Pederson actually gave Mike a bigger run for his money until the all-star break happened. At the end of May, both Joc and Seager were ahead of the Piazza pace since Piazza had only hit eight of his thirty-five home runs by the end of May.

This year Cody Bellinger has the best chance to eclipse the Piazza record of 35 home runs in 1993 as a Dodger rookie based on home runs per plate appearance.

Below is a quick table of how long it took each of the Dodger rookies to hit their first nineteen home runs of the season. The PA are estimated within 4 PA. The table also shows how many home runs they each had by June 18th. We might have forgotten just how awesome Joc Pederson was in June of 2015. There was a reason he went to the Home Run derby in 2015. As you can see each Dodger was in front of the Piazza pace on this date. The only way to beat Piazza is to keep up the pace.

Joc couldn’t do it

Seager couldn’t do it

Bellinger ??? – I’d probably bet against it, my total is around 33. He has to slump at some point, doesn’t he?

Player

Year

PA

HR

HR/PA

Total HR by June 18th

Total

Piazza

1993

348

19

18.32

12

35

Puig

2013

416

19

21.89

4

19

Pederson

2015

291

19

15.32

17

26

Seager

2016

452

19

23.79

15

26

Bellinger

2017

205

19

10.79

19

???

If this confusing here is a quick legend.

PA – this is the number of plate appearances it took for each rookie to reach 19 home runs. We used 19 home runs because that is where Bellinger is right now.

HR – This is a marker showing you 19 home runs.

HR/PA – this is the home runs per plate appearance pace when they each hit their 19th home run.